China with CET : An amazing place but a poor study abroad program Past Review
By Mira N (Women's Studies and Chinese, The College of William and Mary) for
CET Beijing
Beijing was a wonderful place to study abroad. I love language immersion but,after having attended the wonderful immersion program at Middlebury College, was very dissapointed with the enforcement of the language pledge,lack of dedication of the students, and the poor teaching methods of the teachers at CET in Beijing. The students were not very studious and started breaking the language pledge from day 1. Many administrators went out clubbing with the students and spoke english with them off-campus. CET was run much more like a business than an educational institute. For example, the third year class had a teacher-student ratio of 1:5 whereas other levels in the same program had as few as 1:2. When we asked about this, CET said they refused to hire on an additional teacher and as a result people in my class reported receiving a much poorer education than the other language levels who were paying the same amount of money. We received a lot less individual attention from teachers and CET refused to help us adapt to this difficult academic situation. For all of these reasons, the learning environment at CET was a far cry from language programs which actually enforce immersion policies and work with a real university as opposed to an institute which doesn't hold classes aside from hosting the ones by CET and other unrelated foreign programs.
Personal Information
| How much international exposure did you have prior to this program? | 6 months+ |
Review Your Program
|
* Overall educational experience
Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc. |
The teaching methods,examinations and homework were all almost completely based on rote memorization rather than application. Although I was learning Chinese at an advanced intermediate level, I was allowed no flexibility in assignments that allowed me to apply the newly learned grammnar and vocabulary in ways relevant to our stay in China or my own interests. We mostly repeated examples from the textbook and did not orally or in writing get the opportunity to go beyond simply reciting textbook examples. |
|
* Host Country Program Administration
On-site administration of your program |
Administrators did not take complaints by the students about daily life seriously. The only good service they provided was reimbursing our tickets to cultural activities that were under 70rmb. |
|
* Housing:
How satisfied were you with your living arrangements? |
Bathrooms because filthy to the point where hair,trash and other inappropriate items were left in the showers for several days at a time. The bathrooms provided waste bins to throw out toilet paper but,despite the many formal and informal complaints of students, no cover was ever provided for these bins so that the waste inside them caused the entire bathroom facilities to stink. The kitchen was tiny and only had some fridges,a microwave, and a hotplate. The fridges became infested with bugs and nobody ever cleaned them out. |
| * Food: |
The vegetarian option offered at the one meal we had every day at the school cafeteria was often bad or lacked variety. Vegetarian dining in the area overall was not very good. The location was not very interesting and far away from the local nightlife which was mostly situated in Wudaokou. |
|
* Social & Cultural Integration:
How integrated did you feel with the local culture? |
Acrobatics performances, a weekend trip to Xi'an, and a trip to the major art gallery were some of the events sponsored by the program |
|
* Health Care:
How well were health issues addressed during the program? |
|
| * Safety: |
|
| If you could do it all over again would you choose the same program? |
No
|
Finances
|
* Money: How easily were you able to live on a student's budget?
(1 = not very easy/$200+ on food & personal expenses/week, 2.5 = $100/week, 5 = very easily/minimal cost) |
|
Language
| * Did your program have a foreign language component? | Yes |
| Language acquisition improvement? |
The immersion aspect of the program was poorly enforced and because of this students were reluctant to practice their chinese, as they easily could speak english with each other and have minimal communication with local Chinese people. |
| If applicable, to what degree did your living situation aid your language acquisition? |
|
Other Program Information
|
* Where did you live?
Select all that apply |
|
|
* Who did you live with?
Select all that apply |
|
A Look Back
| * What do you know now that you wish you knew before going on this program? | A student who cares about the immersion aspect of the program should not participate. Look into programs hosted by actual universities like Yale or Princeton instead. |
